I guess I draw too much from that kind of example for healers, and assumed that Rshaman utility was accounting for more than it actually does. I mean, clearly after reading the sources you provided they aren't interested in including healing-biased utility as part of healer balance - which I find odd (again, not to say that Rshammies didn't deserve a buff). But it is what it is.

I think you're just looking at it wrong. You've looked at the situation as RShaman having more utility than everyone else as a foregone conclusion - but you have to see that it's something completely subjective. There's no objective way to rate utility. I hate to take guesses at Blizzard's intentions, but I suppose they just give everyone "some" utility and call it a day.

The reason it works is because almost all utility features don't stack well. What I mean is, there is severe diminishing returns to having multiple Spirit Links, Barriers, Iron Barks, etc. Not to say more than one is useless, but typically a raid is going to want as many types as possible, because different ones are better at different times. Remember the exception to this - Battle Resses? When you could use as many as you had with no limitation? It was very powerful, and there was a lot of incentive to class-stack Druids for Battle Resses. You don't see guilds class stacking Resto Shaman, or any other class, for utility these days.

As for your Hunter/Arcane Mage comparison - I think that's true for healers to a big extent. Shaman won't do as well when they have to move a lot. The problem before was Shaman weren't doing well even when they could sit and turret heal.

This is really ultimately an issue of encounter design - it goes along with things like damage patterns, length, etc. No one class should always be top (as Disc priests were), but it's okay if classes are stronger in certain situations. That actually creates a really rewarding gameplay experience where a player looks forward to a certain fight because, hey, this is the one where I'm going to kick ass!

The other end, where one class is always dominating (an example for DPS is WW monks at the start of the expansion) isn't fun because no one else gets an opportunity to shine.